A December 2011 unemployment rate of 10.7 percent left Springfield tied for the eighth-highest unemployment rate of any city in the state with Martha's Vineyard communities like Edgartown, Oak Bluffs and Tisbury, where fewer people work in the off season. Holyoke was the next highest local community at 10 percent unemployment for December, up form 9.5 percent in November 2011 but down from 11.2 percent a year ago.

Every town and city in Western Massachusetts had lower unemployment in December 2011 than it had a year before, said Karl J. Petrick, an assistant professor of economics at Western New England University. The state said the region gained 1,600 jobs on the year.

“Certainly we are doing a lot better than we were a year ago,” Petrick said.

But the numbers show that Greater Springfield also lost 2,600 jobs from November to December. Rena Kottcamp, director of research for the Massachusetts Division of Unemployment. Of those lost jobs, 1,000 were in manufacturing. There were 2,100 jobs lost in manufacturing in Greater Springfield in all of 2011. It was the only sector of the economy to post a year-over-year job loss.

“Manufacturing had been recovering until this month,” Kottcamp said. “There appears to be a number of companies that have had longer, or in some cases permanent, shutdowns. I know it is troubling. I know it is not what anyone wants to hear.”

Local unemployment numbers are not adjusted for seasonal changes in the economy. Kottcamp said there is always a spike in unemployment in December as seasonal businesses shut down and construction sites button up for the year.

Greater Springfield added construction jobs last month, probably a reflection of ongoing cleanup from the storms and a mild early winter.

She said as a region, greater Springfield is showing about the same rate of improvement as the state. Over the year, the regional unemployment rate improved by 1.5 percentage points from 8 in December 2010 to 6.5 in December 2011. As a region Springfield improved from 9 percent in December 2010 to 7.5 percent.

Statwide, the unemployment rate unadjusted for seasonality was 6.5 percent, up a bit from 6.4 percent in November. The statewide seasonal-adjusted unemployment rate of 6.8 percent, down 0.2 of a percentage point from the November rate of 7.0 percent. the national average is 8.5 percent.

FurtureWorks Career Center in Springfield reported a 12-percent increase in job seekers reporting success: 347 people found work in December 2011 versus 309 in December 2010.

Of those jobs, 113 jobs found in construction.

The average hourly wage at hire at Futureworks in December went from last year’s $12.72 an hour to $13.89, a $1.17 an hour increase over December 2010.